


i've been waiting for you

by thatiranianphantom



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Crack, F/M, Fluff, Fluff humor I guess?, It's basically done after that I swear, It's part two of pregnant bughead!, The Joys of Pregnancy, The characters above are only tangentially in there/mentioned, The it's kind of all bughead, again kind of, content warning: vomit in first part, married bughead, post s5, pregnancy fluff, pregnant betty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26879296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatiranianphantom/pseuds/thatiranianphantom
Summary: It’s phenomenal, better than it’s ever been. He lies in bed after, holding his wife, feeling his son or daughter kick under his hand, and things are perfect. He wishes, more than anything, that he could go back to 14-year-old Jughead, lying in bed with his hands clapped over his ears to drown out his parents fighting, hiding past due bank notices, and tell them that eventually, he’d have a naked Betty Cooper in his arms, money in the bank, people reading his books, and his own child on the way.Part II of Betty and Jughead's journey through their first pregnancy.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Minor Veronica Lodge/Archie Andrews
Comments: 40
Kudos: 104





	i've been waiting for you

**Author's Note:**

> Well, shucks. The reception on that last one was so delightful. I have never personally been pregnant, but the research into both that one and this one was so much fun. I had many good chuckles at some of the stories I found. 
> 
> Thusly, enjoy this second (and last) part to this story, which hopefully passes muster as well! Here be more (hopefully) funny moments in Betty and Jughead's first pregnancy. 
> 
> Enjoy, my lovelies!

The first obvious sign that Betty is indeed pregnant is the vomiting. Jughead would never count himself as an expert on pregnancy, but she goes above and beyond as with all things Betty does. 

Betty vomits at any and all opportunities. At her mother’s house, behind the trailer, at night, after laughing. At one fairly impressive point, Jughead had found her sobbing on the floor, outside the door of their room. As it turns out, she had managed to vomit into the ceiling fan, and they had to call a professional cleaning crew to deal with the fallout.

(The head cleaner had clapped him on the shoulder and whispered, “It’s fine, son. We’ve all had pregnant wives at some point.”)

Their constant companion for weeks is a small trash can, with the explicit purpose of some under the counter vomiting. Jughead keeps extra vomit bags to go in the bucket in his pocket; Betty keeps more in her purse. 

They name the can Glenn, after awhile, and Glenn accompanies them to all places. 

He makes the grave mistake, just once, of forgetting Glenn in the car while in a restaurant. Betty had eaten what would conservatively feed a small country (he has had the lesson pounded in his head that he gets no say on how much, or what, she eats, lest she play the “you did this to me” card.)

She gets that look in her eye, and much as they feel around for Glenn, Jughead has forgotten him. That dawns on Betty in the next few seconds, and she only has time to shout out “Glenn!” before tearing to the restaurant’s bathroom. 

He owes her two burritos after ten full minutes of vomiting, she informs him. He looks at her incredulously. 

“You just finished throwing up!”

  
She nods as if she doesn’t understand the connection. “And now I’m hungry. Chop chop!” 

He emerges from the bathroom to find the restaurant patrons looking at him with pitying expressions, as if Glenn was the man his wife is seeing behind his back. 

* * *

Her sense of smell is impeccable, but he finds this out at the most inopportune of times. 

Her cravings vary wildly, and he struggles to keep up, but fried foods are usually on the safe list.

One night, he and Archie are out after work, and they grab some takeout for themselves before they get home. It’s a nice night, and somehow, that translates into his brain being off, because he makes the cardinal mistake of eating McDonald’s and not getting any for Betty. By the time he realizes what a sin that is, it is near too late. In a panic, he dumps the garbage into the neighbor’s trash bins, and Febreze’s the house like a madman. He’s fool enough to think himself safe, until he sees her silhouette darken their bedroom doorway, like in a horror movie. And similar to a horror movie, he feels his stomach drop to his feet as she slides over to him, a dangerous glint in her eyes. 

“You had McDonald’s. You had McDonald’s without me.” It’s an accusation that carries the same weight as her accusing him of cheating on her. 

“I didn’t,” he protests feebly. “I didn’t, Betts, I swear.”

“I can smell it on you,” she whispers, low and dangerous. “You betrayed me.”

He tries to deny it, and she leans near him with an exaggerated sniff. “I smell Dr. Pepper. Do you mean to tell me I don’t?”

“Dr. Pepper is a popular soda brand, and it could be any…”

He gets this far before he gives up, knowing he’s not fooling her. His crime is paid for by going back to McDonald’s, and also buying $25 worth of snacks for her that he is ordered not to eat, or else his beloved wife will “slit your throat while you sleep,” and he doesn’t want to take the chance that she is entirely serious. 

* * *

And then come the hormonal changes. Jughead rather enjoys cuddling with his gorgeous wife at the end of a long day, and sex had never been something they were shy about. Ever since that night, that first  _ stay _ when they were sixteen. 

So the day when he comes home and she drops her robe to reveal the sexiest lingerie he’s ever seen, and they don’t even get to dinner, he’s pretty excited to welcome in the sexually-frustrated stage of her pregnancy.

Again, his wife is gorgeous. She’s kind and generous and smart and so very beautiful, and he’s already the luckiest man in the world to get to marry her. 

Betty Cooper is the best thing in his life, and their love life had never been lacking. 

So the first few days of this new pregnancy stage, they have sex in every conceivable way, and then some that he has surreptitiously googled on his commute. 

It’s phenomenal, better than it’s ever been. He lies in bed after, holding his wife, feeling his son or daughter kick under his hand, and things are perfect. He wishes, more than anything, that he could go back to 14-year-old Jughead, lying in bed with his hands clapped over his ears to drown out his parents fighting, hiding past due bank notices, and tell them that eventually, he’d have a naked Betty Cooper in his arms, money in the bank, people reading his books, and his own child on the way. 

It’s bliss, and it lasts all of about a week.

Betty never seems to get tired. She leaps at him the second he walks in the door, sealing her lips to his, and while it’s great, really great, after a week he’s not sure he’s ever been this tired. 

That doesn’t seem to faze her, though. He turns her down in the second week for the first time, which triggers a wave of tears and accusations that he finds her fat and ugly. 

He doesn’t remember saying or even implying this, but he’s learning with the hormone fluctuations, it’s all about what he didn’t say. 

* * *

He starts to get reports. Reggie proudly asserts that “baby Coop” was very into his cologne that day (she reports differently, while he holds her hair back at just the thought of that scent). 

Cheryl tells her once that she looks lovely, and he hears “she leaned in, hobo. Maybe she is finally starting to tire of your grungy, emo Linus appeal.” 

Archie has had to extricate Betty from long hugs, and awkwardly ask Jughead if things were okay at home. 

And then Veronica finds him as she happens by his office for lunch. 

“Um, Jughead, why was Betty flirting with me?” Veronica asks him, as he is barely able to keep his eyes open. 

He can only manage a shrug. “I don’t know, Veronica, but if you’d be willing to pursue that, you’d really be doing me a solid.” 

* * *

It’s mid-December, but she’s hot. She’s hot all the time, so don’t even think about touching her, but that means the air conditioning in their home gets cranked down to arctic temperatures, and he is wearing a parka, a cap, and ski socks in bed, but is still freezing. He’s thinking about weaving a braid with the icicles sure to be forming on his chin. But his wife is lying next to him, contentedly snoring, and he is still doing penance for the time he left three plates in the sink and Betty muttered something about how they’d look after she broke them over his stupid head, so he thinks it best not to chance it. 

* * *

Betty’s due in February. February 17th, to be exact. The date is circled on the calendar, they’ve been through all the preparation stages, the crib is up, and she has nested so much that it is starting to look like they’ve been burgled. 

And yet, it’s February 20th, and no baby. 

Betty has passed uncomfortable a long time ago, and like many, if not most things, this is his fault. 

He does his best to make her comfortable. He surrenders his seat on any and all furniture, he cooks for her, he rubs her back at night. 

Her reactions are a mix between her melting into him with a sigh of “thank you, Juggie,” and looking at him like she is plotting his murder, and growling “ _ You _ . Like you haven’t done  _ enough _ .” 

Technically, he did do this to her, and he is willing to suffer the consquences. He lays with her and reminds her of the high moments of this pregnancy. 

Like hearing the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. Up until then, the baby had been a plus sign on a white plastic stick. It was hard to imagine that as a full human being. But then the whooshing sound of a heart beating had filled the dark room, and suddenly, they had created a living, breathing thing, with a beating heart. 

Betty wipes his tears away, and he does the same to her, and today, in bed, they still weep a bit over the video. 

There are other moments, too. Telling their parents, watching JB squeal in excitement at becoming an aunt. Preparing the baby’s room. Putting in for leave. Feeling his baby kick inside his wife. Even going out to Dairy Queen in a blizzard at 3am, and simply telling the cashier “pregnant wife.” 

But in this time, she is, by her own definition, huge and miserable. She is unable to be comfortable, she isn’t sleeping, and she is willing to try anything and everything to get the baby out. 

He gets one day of relief when she goes out for brunch and manicures with Veronica, but after that day, she is unceremoniously dropped off at home, with Veronica looking a bit pale, and asserting that she will never be pregnant ever, and that Betty was asking for Jughead. 

Feebly, he faces up to Betty, ready to receive blame for being the cad that put her in this kind of personal hell. 

“Can’t you be Jughead? Please?” he whines, but Veronica is already gone. 

* * *

They try everything, up to and including Betty shouting for a full hour at her belly, firmly reprimanding the baby that its tenure here was done and it’s really inconsiderate of them to be squatting past the eviction date. They eat spicy food, he feeds her castor oil, they have some fairly acrobatic sex. 

It’s all for naught until, of course, they stop trying, and their son is born a day later. 

He coos between them, and Jughead holds his whole family in his arms.

They hold what they made together between them, Jughead stretches his fingers out over the hand brace they’d given him after her tight grip caused bruising, and he presses a long kiss to his wife’s head, and then to their son’s. 

* * *

  
  


It’s fourteen months, nearly to the day, when Betty comes to him again, with a pink plus sign on a plastic stick, and the cycle starts again. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> It may be awhile, my folks, before I post again. I've just been a bit burned out recently. Even this guy was a fight to get out. But I shall be back when inspiration strikes!


End file.
